


You're the Beautiful One That Time Cannot Marr

by bertie456 (bertee)



Series: Bones: You're Lovely to Me [30]
Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-27 22:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bertee/pseuds/bertie456





	You're the Beautiful One That Time Cannot Marr

"Well, you're not my daughter."

Booth smirked, "Gee, what gave it away, Max?"

The orange jumpsuit crinkled round the older man's elbows as he leaned back, folding his arms and saying simply, "It's the shirt." Booth looked down in confusion at his black 'Guys and Dolls' tee, and Max continued, "Temperance never liked musicals."

"But aside from the shirt...?" Booth asked good-naturedly as he took a seat opposite the felon.

"Oh, you're a dead ringer," Max finished, chuckling at the amused expression on the agent's face. His tone became almost wistful as he observed, "You know, you even smell like her a little."

Booth's smirk vanished and he eyed Max suspiciously as he repeated, "I smell like her? You go round sniffing your children?"

He shook his head, the contented glint returning to his eye. "After you've been in here a while, everything seems the same. It's only when someone new comes in that you even notice the stuff you're missing, like the smell of something that isn't industrial strength prison cleaner. As for you two smelling the same, I'm guessing that my daughter uses the same laundry detergent on both your clothes?"

Slightly relieved to hear that his girlfriend's father didn't have some odd scent obsession, Booth relaxed a little as he corrected him, voice rife with self-deprecation, "Same detergent but she's not the one who does the laundry."

Max nodded in understanding. "Her mother was exactly the same with me. Of course, it did take Ruth four years of us living together before she managed to off-load laundry duty onto me; it's been how long for you and Temperance, five months?"

"Four," he admitted honestly, before attempting an excuse, "It's not like I mind doing it though..."

The older man raised his eyebrows. "Oh please, like anyone enjoys doing laundry. No, she takes after her mother in that respect; she has a habit of getting her own way." A small smile of remembrance passed across his lips before he again lifted his gaze to Booth, unfolding his arms as he asked, his tone curious, "So why are you here instead of my daughter? Because, you know, there's a certain irony in my arresting agent coming to visit me today of all days."

Booth frowned, lost. "What's so special about today?"

Max sat up straighter, almost puffing out his chest as he spoke, "Today is the third anniversary of the day that I decided to give up my life of crime and turn myself in to the FBI of my own free will." The snort of laughter escaped Booth before he could stop it and the older man glared at him, his demeanor returning to normal as he said defensively, "What? I gave myself up."

"Yeah, after a fistfight in the parking lot," Booth corrected pointedly.

Max shrugged. "Well, I could've run away after I'd kicked your ass but I chose not to. That counts as giving myself up."

"Okay, one, you did not kick my ass in that fight, and two, there is no way you would've gotten away no matter what you did." Booth flashed him a cocky grin. "You did make it pretty easy to get enough evidence to arrest you, so I guess you get credit for that."

The older man glowered at him, his expression dangerously close to a pout. "You know it's illegal to mock people sentenced to life in prison? Something about self-esteem issues."

"Self-esteem issues?" The agent couldn't stop the smile spreading across his face at the ridiculous notion. "Max, you don't exactly strike me as a guy who's got confidence problems."

"I'm very sensitive," the criminal informed him with as much sincerity as he could muster. However, he only managed to hold Booth's gaze for a couple of seconds before the charade became too much and he conceded, "Okay, so I wasn't talking about _my_ self-esteem issues..." Booth chuckled, leaning back on the hard metal chair, and Max instinctively leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table as he inquired seriously, "So why are you really here? Is Temperance okay? Because I was getting kinda used to her visits..."

"Bones is fine," the younger man informed him and Max nodded.

"Pretty much figured you wouldn't be here making cracks at her old man if something bad had happened to her. She's not got tired of seeing me, has she? I know the three of you were off hiking in the mountains last week, but prison's still an exciting place to visit too. I mean, you get the fun of having to sit in the waiting room, and then being searched, and maybe getting your possessions confiscated. Hey, there's even a possibility of a cavity search if you look shifty enough."

His jovial smile didn't quite reach his eyes and Booth felt a small pang of pity for the old man, murderer or not, and spoke quickly to reassure him, "She's still going to come visit you, but her publishers have got her working round the clock this week doing promotion. Apparently they weren't real happy about her taking a vacation just before her new book was due out."

This time the smile was a little more genuine, and Max replied conversationally, "It's a good book."

Apparently this was the wrong thing to say. "You've read it?"

His expression turned smug as the reason behind Booth's outrage clicked into place, and he said with mock-innocence, "Of course I've read it. I am her father."

"But- But you're in jail!" Booth stammered in annoyance. "Why would she let you read it and not me?" His ego reared its head, and his voice lowered as he tried to rationalise, "It's because there's too much of me in it, isn't there? She wouldn't want me to read it early in case I got embarrassed by the fact that Andy Lister is basically me."

"I wouldn't know," Max replied honestly. "I always skip the sex scenes. It's a little unnerving to think of my little girl even having sex, let alone detailing it for thousands of people to read." He shuddered, speaking more to himself than to the man opposite him, "And I always thought finding Russ' porn collection was the most awkward experience I'd have as a father."

Unsure what to say in order to avoid any further discussion of his sexual exploits with his partner, Booth swiftly changed the subject back to the original question in the hopes of pretending the intervening conversation never happened. "Anyway, Bones is down in Miami for a couple of days for signings and interviews so she asked me to stop by. Said she'd promised to show you this?"

Max looked up at the question to see Booth push a small brown book toward him. Hooking his feet round the chair legs, he pulled it and himself closer to the metal table before opening the book curiously. An involuntary smile tugged at Booth's lips when he saw the older man raise his head in surprise, face bright with enthusiasm at the realisation that the book was in fact Brennan's carefully complied photo album of their recent vacation.

Gratitude coloring his tone, Max stared down at the album as he said quietly, "She said she'd make one of these if she had time, but I wasn't sure if she'd remember to bring it to show me."

Booth raised his eyebrows, "This is Bones we're talking about here; when did she ever forget anything?"

"Guess I should've known better, huh?" he responded absently as he turned the first page of the album with almost reverential care, revealing a picture of Brennan and Booth smiling broadly for the camera while a range of pale red mountains could be seen emerging above the tall trees that surrounded the couple. Eyes drinking in the pictures as he continued to turn the pages, Max asked with interest, "Where did you go? Temperance said it was somewhere in Utah, but I can't remember the name."

"Zion," the agent supplied, almost entranced by the pictures too. "It's a National Park on the Virgin River."

"Looks beautiful," he murmured and the other man nodded in agreement.

"It's an amazing place." Leaning on the table, Booth took a better look at the pictures, pointing to one that showed the couple standing in front of a stunning backdrop of a huge sandstone canyon lined with trees which was glowing red in the early morning light. Both partners looked flushed and hot, presumably from the walk up to the vantage point, but their faces were full of life as they looked at the camera, Booth's arms round Brennan's waist and a grin on his lips as he rested his chin playfully on her shoulder. "That's the Canyon Overlook," he informed him in spite of the fact that both men were more focused on a certain person than the view.

With unspoken mutual consent, Max turned the page again, this time revealing a picture of Booth standing to the left of three dark red peaks and holding his laughing son in a piggy-back position as the child stretched his arms above his head in what appeared to be an impression of a mountain. Peering closely at the photograph, Max inquired, "That your boy?"

"Yep," Booth replied briefly, instinctively wary about talking about his son with a man in jail for life. However, as Max looked fondly at the picture, he relaxed slightly, continuing, "His name's Parker. He's going to be nine in a couple of months."

"Nearly double-figures," the other man commented with a smile, and Booth chuckled.

"God, don't mention the big 1-0. His mom promised him he could get a dog when he's ten and if he had his way, he'd spend the next fourteen months going on an in-depth tour of animal shelters to choose the exact one he wanted." Realising he could easily spend the whole afternoon talking about his son, he cut himself off, saying briefly, "He's a great kid." Pointing to the picture, he explained, "Those peaks behind us are called the Three Patriarchs, and when Bones told him what a "patriarch" was, he decided that we should make a father-son mountain. With arms. There's one of him and Bones somewhere..."

Flipping quickly through the pages, he found the picture in question and Max laughed at the sight of the exuberant eight-year-old tugging a laughing Brennan under a light shower of water which fell from the overhanging rock above them. The sunlight caught the water, making it sparkle as it flowed, while the cliff shadowed the area below it, giving the illuminated drops an ethereal glow.

Indicating the water, Booth relayed, "That's called the Weeping Rock. You can't really see from this but the water runs off the edge of this jutting cliff and then rains down in a long line." He glanced back down at the picture, pointing to the one below it, "I think we caught it on a heavy day."

Max followed his indication and laughed loudly at the picture of a half-drenched Brennan glaring accusingly at the man behind the camera with her best attempt at a serious expression, while Parker stood in the background with a triumphant grin as he waved at his accomplice, acting as further proof that the plan had been a joint effort.

When he stopped laughing, Brennan's father continued to leaf through the album, questioning with attempted subtlety, "Does Temperance get along well with your boy? Because from what I've learned about her over the last three years, she doesn't really seem like a family-vacation type of woman..."

"Bringing Parker was her idea," Booth countered, a little more defensively than he'd intended. Catching himself, he took a deep breath and elaborated awkwardly, "I usually get time with Parker over his school vacations, but we'd already scheduled the trip before Rebecca gave me the dates of his mid-term break. I said he could stay with his mom, but Bones said she was happy to take him with us, so we did." Breathing out slowly, he added with sincerity, "She's really great with him. And as for vacations, as long as she's active, she's happy."

"So no relaxation retreats then?"

Booth grinned. "Not unless she could go scale the outside of the spa."

Smirking, Max turned the final page of the album but fell silent as he stared at the picture, tracing the outline slowly with his fingers. Booth just watched him, remembering which photograph was there and knowing he'd been just as enthralled by it himself.

The older man's mouth tightened briefly as he stared at it, the crinkles around his eyes appearing more pronounced with the wistful expression of regret that passed across his face. Booth could see his gaze travel slowly across the page, taking in every tiny detail of the picture that lay before him. Unlike the majority of the others, it didn't have a breath-taking backdrop or an astounding view of the National Park; instead it was taken inside an ordinary blue tent which was strewn with sleeping bags, backpacks and water bottles.

However, the location barely registered as Max was drawn to the image of his daughter in the center of the frame, her eyes shining as she looked up at the camera. Her natural curls fell messily around her face, caught mid-swing by the click of the camera, and her face was bare of all makeup. The aquamarine filter of the tent colored her pale skin, but couldn't mask the healthy flush on her cheeks or the glow that seemed to light her features. Her eyes also remained untainted by the illumination, with the indefinable glint in them dwarfing the mundane dark blue of her surroundings as she smiled up at the photographer. Whereas her smile in the other pictures had been one of laughter, satisfaction, or enjoyment, every part of her expression, from the glow of her skin, to the twinkle in her eyes, to the gentle curve of her lips now seemed to radiate sheer happiness, the like of which he hadn't seen for years.

Swallowing hard, he spoke softly, unable to take his eyes off the picture, "She's beautiful."

"Yes, she is," Booth echoed, equally quietly.

Max gave a small smile, blinking back his emotions as he murmured, still looking at his daughter, "I've had a picture of her with me for years. When we left her and her brother, we had to destroy everything, but I still kept one picture of each of them hidden away."

He sighed, redeveloping the photograph from memory as he recalled, "She was just a baby, maybe eighteen months old, and she was the most perfect thing you've ever seen. I know she's slim now, but she was a round little thing, always bouncing and laughing and wanting to poke her nose into everything she could find. In the picture, she's right in the middle of our old couch, sitting there like she owns it even though she could barely climb onto it by herself." He chuckled to himself, before shaking his head in amazement, "But the look on her face... She's looking at me like there is nothing in the world that could make her happier at that moment."

He looked up at Booth, saying earnestly, "I haven't seen her look like that in any other picture before today." Eyeing the agent carefully, he asked with genuine interest, "Do you make her happy, Booth?"

"I try," Booth responded simply.

Max nodded, giving him a half-smile as he echoed the other's earlier phrasing, "You don't strike me as a guy who fails at things." The younger man made no reply, and Max just slowly closed the album, pushing it gently back across the table to Booth and speaking to mask his reluctance, "Thanks for bringing that to show me."

"No problem," he replied sincerely, getting to his feet and picking up the book, both of them aware that the exchanged gesture held more significance than the conversational words.

He slid the chair neatly back under the table as Max remained seated, but reached into the album one last time before he went to leave. The photograph dropped quietly to the table, its landing cushioned by air as it came to rest in front of Max, and he looked up in surprise.

Booth met his eyes, his words simple but meaningful, "I've got my own."

A look of acknowledge passed between the two men and Max reached out to take the photograph as Booth turned to leave, his casual demeanor back in place as he said, "I'll get Bones to come pay you a visit when she gets back from Miami. She can tell you all about Florida."

Max smiled, saying as the agent moved to open the door, "Tell her that I'll want to know about your vacation too. She tells much better stories than you do."

Booth smirked, "I'm sure she'll be thrilled with that accolade."

"Oh, and socks. Tell her I want more-"

The door slammed shut.

"...socks."


End file.
